Alibaba surprised investors and industry watchers on Thursday by announcing plans to replace its current CEO less than nine months after the Chinese e-commerce giant raised $25 billion in the largest public offering in history.

Daniel Zhang, Alibaba's COO since 2013, will take over as CEO this week from Jonathan Lu, an early employee of the company who succeeded founder Jack Ma in the chief executive role in 2013.

Zhang, who previously ran Alibaba's Tmall shopping property and served as CFO for its other shopping marketplace Taobao, is billed as representing a fresh, younger face for the company by Ma, who is well known for advocating for youth.

Good day for folks born post-1970 .. at least at Alibaba.

"This marks a future where the post-70 generation will command the troops" - Ma

“There is no better person to lead Alibaba Group as we embark on the next stage of our growth on top of the strong foundation that Jonathan helped build,” Ma, who currently serves as Alibaba's executive chairman and one of its largest shareholders, said in a statement. "Today’s announcement reflects our commitment to continuing to develop strong leadership from within.”

The sudden executive shuffle follows a gradual tapering off in the stock price since the IPO last year amid mounting concerns about the rate of sales growth for the already staggeringly large ecommerce businesses as well as increased regulatory pressure in China.

Alibaba helped ease some of those concerns with its latest earnings results, released on Thursday, which beat Wall Street estimates with revenue of about $2.8 billion for the March quarter. That represented revenue growth of 45% from the same quarter a year earlier.

Wall Street responded to the revenue beat and CEO change by pushing the stock up more than 10% in pre-market trading Thursday.

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